


Always

by yourlocaltyrusstan



Category: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - Ransom Riggs
Genre: F/M, I wrote this in 2016 please don't come for me, it's kind of weird, nothing explicit but mentions of things like cutting and assault
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-10-07 01:07:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17356067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourlocaltyrusstan/pseuds/yourlocaltyrusstan
Summary: "Before you came, when Abe and Victor were still with us, a girl was dropped off at our doorstep. Her name was Celia Meyrick . . . I was smitten by the next day."-•-Emma wants Jacob to know that Enoch wasn't always cold and heartless. But an unexpected guest shows up, and the story these peculiars thought they knew turns out to be no more than a few lies. Why would you break the heart of someone you loved just to live a little?





	Always

_**Disclaimer** : I do not own the mentioned characters or settings in the following story, aside from the Meyrick/Van de Coup family, and the Wayward Peculiars. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is the property of Ransom Riggs and Quirk Books, and are not my intellectual property. There is no financial gain made from this nor will there be any sought. This is for entertainment purposes only._

_**Author's Note** : Before we get started, I just want to say that this is little AU-ish, and some characters are a little OOC. I really have no ability to write language as people (kids, I guess I should say) would have spoken it in the 1940's. That's not my forté. So if it comes about, it might seem as if I were trying too hard. In the books, Enoch appeared to be physically frozen at the age of thirteen. In this fic, he's around fifteen in the flashbacks and seventeen in present day._

_**And another thing** : This is mainly BOOK-based. In the books, Emma has pyrokinetic abilities, Olive is physically around the age of eight and "lighter than air," and Enoch is blonde and British. Tim Burton switched the peculiarities for the movies; I know what I'm writing._

_Thanks for dropping by, and enjoy reading._

**Prologue**.

Enoch and Emma stood on the front porch of the Portman household, waiting for their friend to answer the door.

Emma was dressed in a blue floral dress and a pair of white flats, her blonde hair pulled back in a perfectly messy bun. Enoch was leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, dressed in a dark green shirt and overalls. His blonde hair was mussed and the rings around his eyes were darker than usual.

He and Emma—mostly Emma—had been planning this day for over two months, and he had been losing so much sleep dreading this date.

Jacob opened the door and pulled Emma in for a kiss. She giggled. Enoch rolled his eyes and fought back the urge to gag.

"Jacob," Emma cooed. "You look nice. Are you ready?"

All Jacob had been told was "don't schedule anything for Saturday, the 22 February. Enoch and I want to take you somewhere." And at first, Jacob was a little surprised that Enoch was involved, but he didn't argue. It did no good to argue with Emma, anyway.

"Yup," Jacob said. "Just—I'll be right back, I have to go grab my keys."

Jacob turned around and bolted down the hallway, leaving Emma and Enoch to themselves. Emma looked up at Enoch. In the few years since they'd left the loop, he had grown to five-foot-eleven-inches.

"It'll be alright." Emma promised, patting Enoch's bicep.

"Will it?" Enoch snapped, flinching away from his friend. Emma sighed softly and folded her arms. "You know I don't like talking about this subject."

"Jacob needs to know you weren't always such a jerk," Emma mumbled.

Jacob appeared, shutting and locking the door behind him. He reached for Emma's hand, taking great comfort in the way their hands molded so perfectly together.

"Where are we going?" Jacob asked his girlfriend.

Emma's answer was vague—"To a field."

—•—

Enoch sucked in a deep breath as the field Emma mentioned came into view. They were just flowers, and already they were resurfacing a million memories.

"Wow." Jacob breathed, taking in the landscape before him. Emma must have done some major exploring, because he did not know a tulip field existed in Florida.

"It's beautiful, ain't it?" Emma smiled up at Jacob and skipped to a patch in the center of the field. Jacob followed her, but Enoch stayed where he was. "Enoch? Come on!"

He shook his head, slowly at first, muttering to himself. He wanted to turn around, run away and never come back. And he was going to.

"Enoch?"

Enoch sucked in a breath and walked over to the patch. He sat down in front of Emma and Jacob, crossing his arms and glaring at Emma.

"Jacob," started Emma. "Enoch does not hate you."

Enoch snorted and even Jacob rolled his eyes.

"Of course he doesn't," Jacob scoffed at the same time Enoch said, "I don't know what's up your ass, but I—"

Emma rolled her eyes. "No, you don't."

"Emma," Enoch sighed. "Please—"

"Enoch!" Emma snapped, then once she knew she had his attention, a little more gently: "He needs to know. Let him know."

His eyes flitted over to Jacob. "No," Enoch said sternly. "He doesn't."

"Jacob," Emma started. "Way before we met you, when Abe and Victor were still with us, there was a gi—"

"Shut up!" Enoch screamed, jumping up. Emma's eyes widened and she shut her mouth, staring incredulously at Enoch. "If you're so bloody adamant about this, whatever. But—"

"Are you going to tell him?" Emma said, nodding at Jacob.

Jacob looked over at Enoch, leaning just a little bit forward, waiting for the dead-riser to speak.

Enoch breathed deeply, running his hands down his face. He took another breath before speaking. "Before you came, when Abe and Victor were still with us, a girl was dropped off at our doorstep. Her name was Celia Meyrick."

—•—

—•—

_(03 September 1940)_

_Miss Peregrine mumbled under her breath as she rushed down the stairs to answer the door—because who in the world would be banging at the door at this time of the night?_

_No one, but the thought didn't hit the older lady until after she'd clutched the doorknob and yanked the door open._

_She was greeted by two shivering, soaked females. And the possibility of someone who could be a danger to herself and her peculiars flew out the_ window, _because one of her peculiars had told her of this exact scenario._

_"Hello." Miss Peregrine greeted._

_"Please!" the older one begged, clasping her hands together. The younger one looked up at Miss Peregrine, her eyes wide and bright green. "Please take my precious Celia, I beg of you. She's not safe at home. My mother, s– she told me about you once. She said if I ever needed Celia to be safe, I could bring her to one of you. She said you'd know M- Miss Wren. My mother was Agatha Van de Coup. She belonged to Miss Wren's loop in her_ childhood, _until she left on her own accord. She told me you could protect Celia."_

_"Mom?" the younger girl piped. Her voice was soft and meek. "What's wrong? You said we were going to Aunt May's house and– and this ain't Aunt May's house."_

_The older woman looked down at her daughter, her eyes filled with sadness and worry. She shook her head at Celia before turning back to Miss Peregrine._

_"Please?" She begged, sobs passing through her lips, soft at first, quickly getting louder. "Please just take her."_

_Footsteps were heard in the background, pitter-pattering down the stairs, and then a group of children appeared behind Miss Peregrine. Celia peered over Miss Peregrine's shoulder at the children. One boy in particular—with fair hair and silk pajamas—locked eyes with Celia and smiled at her. Celia frowned. When Miss Peregrine's eyes locked again with Celia's mother, she nodded once._

_The mother let out a grateful cry, dropping to her knees to wrap her arms around Celia in a tight hug. Celia was frozen, confused as to what was happening. She slowly wrapped her arms around her mother, biting her lip as the woman squeezed her daughter tighter than she ever had before. Her mom pulled away, brushing a wet strand of hair that was stuck to her face behind her ear._

_"I will always love you, Celia."_

_"Mom, what– what's happening?" Celia cried as her mother placed a kiss atop her head. "What are you doing? Can't we go to Aunt May's now?"_

_She didn't get an answer. Just one more tight hug and one last kiss before her mother turned and sprinted away._

_Celia stared after her mother's figure as it disappeared, jaw slack. She looked up at Miss Peregrine, who offered a small smile. Celia peered over Miss Peregrine's shoulder again, at the children. The fair-haired boy was missing. Miss Peregrine stepped to the side, allowing room for the young girl to enter._

_"My name is Miss Peregrine," she said. "It's a pleasure to have you join us."_

_Pleasure? Celia thought, scoffing to herself._

_Outwardly, Celia stayed silent, now glaring at the faces of the children that stared curiously back. Miss Peregrine walked to stand behind the group of adolescents._

_"Introduce yourself."_

_"She's not a wight?" questioned the small girl._

_"Of course not, look at her eyes," came a voice from nowhere—not one of the people standing in front of her. "I'm Millard."_

_Where is he?_

_"Emma."_

_"Hi," the small girl said, stepping toward Celia. "I'm Claire."_

_The introductions continued, and when they were done, Miss Peregrine turned to Emma and asked her to escort Celia to her room and offer her a change of clothes._

_"Follow me," Emma smiled softly, heading up the stairs. Nine pairs of eyes followed the girls up the stairs, but as soon as they were out of sight, the children turned to the headmistress and began asking questions._

_"What's your peculiarity?" Emma asked as she came to a halt in front of a door. Celia didn't answer, just stared angrily at the door in front of her and the other girl. "I understand. But you'll find that you can't stay quiet forever." Emma opened the door and swept her arm around the room. "This is your room." She walked over to a dresser and pulled out a light pink dress. She handed it to Celia. "If you need anything, anything at all, I'm just right here, to the left. Goodnight."_

_Emma walked away and Celia closed the door, changing out of her wet, baby blue dress and into the pink one. She pressed her back against the wall as her eyes scanned her new room. She slid down the door, burrowing her head in her knees._

_She was not going to cry. But she was confused and overwhelmed. Her mom had said they were going to her Aunt May's house, and she'd believed her. It must have helped her mother's case that the way of transportation to this place and her_ aunt's _were about the same._

_What's a peculiarity, and how did her mom know this Miss Peregrine, or who was Miss Wren, and what was a loop?_

_Celia began hyperventilating. She couldn't breathe. Her body was shaking so much, and she couldn't stop it. She was trying now to even out her breathing, calm her body down, but no matter what she did—she couldn't. It felt like tremors were surging throughout her body. Mini-surges of electricity traveling through her veins, straight to her hands. She lifted her head from her knees and stared at her trembling hands. She noticed the tips of her fingers spark._

_Gasping, she jumped up and climbed into the bed, shoving her hands under her butt. She found a fixed point on the_ ceiling, _and counted and breathed._

_Slowly, she calmed down and soon enough, she was breathing regularly. She removed her hands from under herself and looked at them, turning them around, examining them over and over again. No sparks._

_Celia let out a strange mix of a sob and a laugh._

_Of course!_

_This was a dream, and tomorrow, she'd wake up, nice and warm, in the spare_ bed _of her cousin Nathan's room._

_. . ._

_Knock knock._

_Celia groaned, turning over and burying her face into her pillow._

_"Go away, Nathan." She grumbled, wiping_ drool _off her cheek._

_"Who's Nathan?" someone questioned._

_"Go. Away." She said a little louder—she was hearing things. She wanted more time to sleep and more time to process her stupid little dream, given it actually meant anything._

_"Breakfast is ready."_

_Celia didn't move. Maybe if she stayed still, he'd go away._

_"Breakfast is ready!" The person snapped._

_Celia bolted up in her bed, ready to scream at her cousin, glaring at the boy standing in the doorway. But it didn't register at first that the person wasn't her cousin. She whipped her head around the room, taking in everything that made it not Nathan's—the semi-girlish decor, the lack of strewn clothes on the floor, and Nathan didn't have a nightstand._

_Then she noticed the boy. He was leaning against the doorway, messy blonde hair, black-ringed blue eyes, clad in a light green shirt and beige overalls._

_Not Nathan. Celia groaned internally, flopping back down on her bed._

_No. So this isn't a dream?_

_"Breakfast." The boy said again, turning to walk away._

_She threw the covers off of herself and stood up. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes and she had to force herself not to cry. She stepped into the_ hallway, _and trudged down the staircase. She was quick to find the dining room. Eleven other children and an older lady sitting at a rectangular table with delicious-looking plates spread around, not hard to miss._

_They were all staring at her. She swallowed thickly, moving slowly to the only free chair left at the table. To the right of the boy who'd woken her up._

_Food was passed over to her, which she refused to take. She handed every dish that came her way over to the boy._

_"Aren't you going to eat?" the little girl named Claire questioned._

_Celia stared at her plate._

_"Where did you come from?" asked a boy with a beekeeper's hat and blacked out sunglasses. He was sitting at a different table in the corner. Celia furrowed her brows as two bees emerged from his mouth and swarmed around for a moment before jumping back in, but she didn't answer._

_"Can you fly?" asked another kid, who was strapped down to her chair. "I can."_

_"Stop bugging her," said Emma. "She obviously doesn't want to talk."_

_Celia shut her eyes and inhaled deeply._

_But this is a dream. This is a dream. Realistic—very realistic—but this is a dream and I will wake up and I will be in Nathan's room and this is just a dream, she promised herself._

_She exhaled. Opened her eyes to find the children staring at her._

_"Children, it's rude to stare." Miss Peregrine scolded. "Celia needs some time to sort out this situation—it was rather unexpected for us and just as unexpected, if not more so, for Celia."_

_Celia suddenly stood up, knocking her chair over. With no apology, she picked the chair up and pushed it in, and walked upstairs, slamming the door behind her, loud enough_ hopefully _that the children heard her. Loud enough that maybe it would wake her up._

_Wake up, Celia silently demanded herself, dragging her hands down her face. She paced around her room, making sporadic noises that sounded like a mixture between a gasp and a sob. Tears streamed down her face and she felt the surges from last night zooming throughout her body once more. Her hands were shaking. She brought them up to examine them, hoping they wouldn't spark, because if they did . . . Oh dear, what if she really was a freak? Wake up!_

_Her fingertips sparked, and she gaped at her hands. The sad, anxious, terrified tears stopped and were replaced instead with angry tears as her fingertips continued to spark._

_I'm not a freak . . . This isn't me!_

_The sparks subsided. They were only gone for a quick moment, and when they started up again, they were sparky and sporadic in the first moments, then they took on a mind of their own and wrapped themselves around her fingers. The line of electricity that was oddly comfortably wrapped around her right hand's ring finger stretched out toward the window, curved downward, then upward, sideways, this way and that, and Celia's eyes widened when she made out a face in the electricity. Its mouth was opened in a gasp, eyes furrowed in confusion. Celia let out a yelp, and the current_ shrinked backwards _before all traces of electricity—the face and strings and sparks—disappeared completely._

_Celia felt dizzy. She managed to stumble her way over to the bed before she collapsed._  
_. . ._

_It was Celia's eighth day at the house. It was only yesterday that she had finally accepted that this was not a dream. Her mom had abandoned her on the front porch of this house. And no one was coming back for her._

_She also realized—accepted—that the sparks from her fingers were not hallucinations. They were very real. At first, they only seemed to come about when she was angry or sad, but alone in her room, she managed to channel the energy surges and they'd come about whenever she wanted and leave whenever she wanted._

_Was that her peculiarity?_

_Celia took a deep breath._

_Maybe she should try to_ talk _the kids. To the . . . Miss Peregrine._

_Another deep breath._

_Celia stood up and walked to the door, grasping the doorknob. She turned it. Opened it. Stepped into the hall._

_She knew where Emma's room was, but she didn't want to talk to Emma. She trotted down the stairs and walked. Just walked around the large area for a bit before she noticed children playing in the backyard. She stepped out into the yard._

_Her eyes scanned the wards. The bee guy. The floating girl. The clothes with no visible owner. Where was breakfast_ boy _?_

_Celia hoped the other kids wouldn't notice her before she found breakfast boy. Her eyes searched and searched around the backyard but she couldn't see him. Something nudged her foot. She looked down and saw a clay-like figure bumping into her foot, scooting back, bumping into her again like a broken wind-up toy. She leaned down to pick it up and examined it. It squirmed in her grip._

_She opened her palm and let the clay figure rest there. She began walking around the yard, toward the trees. On a stump sat breakfast boy, surrounded by several other clay figures._

_"Is this . . . yours?" Celia questioned, holding her hand out so breakfast boy could clarify yes or no._

_"Oh, she talks." He muttered. Without so much as a glance at her hand, he grabbed the figure and placed it on the stump next to him. It jumped up and walked around him in a circle before jumping into the grass to join its friends. "What are you doing out here? Shouldn't you be crying or screaming in your room?"_

_Celia frowned, contemplating apologizing to the boy—eventually the whole house. She did scream a lot her first few days._

_"Who are you?" Celia asked. She didn't want to spend however long calling him breakfast boy._

_"I introduced myself the first night."_

_"I forgot. I only remember Emma and Claire."_

_"I'm Enoch."_

_"Celia."_

_"I know," Enoch grumbled. "So what brought you here?"_

_"My mom did."_

_"What's your peculiarity?"_

_Celia shrugged. "I don't know," she answered. "Electricity, I think."_

_"You think?"_

_"What can you do?" Celia asked Enoch._

_"I give things life. Take the life of one, give it to another." Enoch replied, and Celia noticed he was fiddling with a ball of clay in his hands, sculpting it out._

_"Is that what you do with these things?"_

_Enoch nodded. "Want to see?"_

_"Yes."_

_Celia sat down in front of the stump, facing Enoch. He pulled a jar from his overalls and placed it next to him. He finished molding his clay, and it looked just like the others. He used the scalpel to cut a hole in the clay man's chest. He opened the chest, pulled out a small heart, and shoved it inside, sealing it up. He pressed his thumb against the clay figure's chest and it sprinted to life._

_Enoch offered a satisfied smirk as Celia gaped at the figure. It jumped up, bumping the heels of its feet together and did a little dance before joining the others in the grass. Celia counted seven of them._

_"I can do it with other things too, like animals and humans. But it's easier to access clay or clay-making materials here, so I work with homunculi."_

_"_ Homu _-what?" Celia questioned, raising a brow._

_"_ Homunculi. _" Enoch said, his eyes trailing over Celia's body. She was still wearing the pink dress she was wearing when he woke her up for breakfast her first day—it looked fairly clean still, but then again, she wasn't actively involved with any of them or any of their activities. Her red-brown hair was falling in loose tresses down to her breasts, and the little bit of sun they had_ coming _through the trees reflected nicely on her cream-colored skin. But what really got him were her eyes. They were a bright green, and he could see a million things shining in there. He sucked in a breath as his heart thudded against his ribcage. He thanked his stars he was already sitting or he'd have collapsed in awe on the ground. "So can you show me yours? I want to see it."_

_Celia thought this over for a moment before nodding. Enoch stood up, his eyes_ travelling _down to her hands. She closed her eyes and stretched out her fingers._

_He saw the sparks, and it stumped him. Then a large ray of electricity sprouted from her hands and when she raised them up in exasperation, she scorched the leaves of the trees above them, he was amazed._

_. . ._

_Celia promised herself that when dinner came around, she would apologize and introduce herself. She hoped for another round of introductions and also hoped to learn of the others' peculiarities._

_She dished herself food and passed the plate over to Enoch, then she stood up. All surprised, everyone stopped talking to look at her._

_"I would very much like to apologize for my behavior this past week. It was quite unnecessary and I've been very rude—not grateful, which I should be. It was a sudden change that I wasn't expecting, but still, my behavior was uncalled for." Celia said, fiddling with her hands. She grabbed her roll and began fiddling with it. "If it's okay with you, I'd like another round of introductions."_

_"Hugh," said the boy who sat in the corner. A few bees swarmed out of his mouth, buzzing excitedly and Celia fought a smile that threatened to show up._

_"What's your . . . what makes you . . . you?" Celia asked. "If you're okay with telling me that."_

_"I have bees living in my stomach."_

_"Emma," said the girl who had shown her to her room. But Celia knew her already. Emma turned to Miss Peregrine. "May I?"_

_Miss Peregrine contemplated it for a moment before nodding. "I suppose," was her quick answer._

_Emma flicked her wrist and a ball of fire was suddenly levitating above her palm. She flicked it again and it was out._

_"Bronwyn," said a girl who was seated by Claire. "I've unusual strength."_

_"Victor." A boy said, nodding at Bronwyn. "I do what my sister can do."_

_"Millard. I'm invisible. Comes in handy at times."_

_"Aside from the fact that you're naked at the most inappropriate_ times. _" Enoch commented, shoving a piece of ham into his mouth._

_"Horace. I have premonitory dreams. I dreamt of you, coming here." He said, offering Celia a wary smile._

_"You knew I'd be here?"_

_"I didn't know when exactly, but I knew to expect you," Horace answered._

_"I can see the monsters," said a boy sitting next to Emma. "My name is Abraham." He had a thick Polish accent and Celia didn't miss the look Emma gave him and she knew then that these two were in love._

_"I'm Claire."_

_"Olive. I can fly."_

_"I am Miss Peregrine, the headmistress of this loop. I will pull you aside later and talk to you about all of this. I am very sorry about the circumstances that have brought you here, but it is a pleasure to have you."_

_"Likewise," Celia offered a small smile._

_Maybe I can come to fully appreciate this?_

_Celia sat down._

_"Do you know your peculiarity?" Millard asked._

_"I think_ so. _" Celia answered, poking at the slice of ham on her plate._

_"What is it?"_

_"Her hands spark," Enoch answered for her. Celia didn't seem to mind. "But she can also conjure electricity, and she burned some trees out in the yard earlier."_

_"What?" Miss Peregrine exclaimed._

_"I'm terribly sorry,_ Miss. _" Celia said quickly. "I didn't mean to."_

_. . ._

_Miss Peregrine walked around the tree, examining the burnt leaves._

_"You did this?" She asked in awe._

_"Yes,_ Miss. _" Celia answered. "But it was an accident, I swear."_

_"I'm not particularly upset, just surprised." Miss Peregrine let out a soft chuckle. "Would you like to know your ancestry?"_

_. . ._  
_. . ._

Jacob stared at Enoch, a little befuddled. Yes, okay, Miss Peregrine housed a ward named Celia, but what did she have to do with creating the stoic, sarcastic dead-riser that he knew now?

"I was smitten by the next day." Enoch said, shrugging a shoulder. Then suddenly, he stood up. "I'm leaving. I can't do this."

"But Enoch—"

"No!" Enoch snapped, walking down the field.

His figure disappeared and Emma sighed, turning to Jacob. "I did so much searching to find this place, because tulips were her favorite flower. As Enoch said, after Celia began interacting with us all, it only took him a day to fall in love. Eventually, she fell in love with him too and they were inseparable. It wasn't until after that we all realized that we were living in obliviousness. Miss Peregrine could keep us from aging, but she couldn't keep us from dying."

Jacob frowned, now having a strong sense of where this was going.

"One day, about two years after Celia came to our loop, Enoch came up to me to ask me if I had seen Celia around . . ."

_. . ._  
_. . ._

_(03 September 1940)_

_"Emma!" Enoch called, spotting the girl in the garden. Emma turned to face Enoch as he came to a halt in front of her. "Have you seen Celia?"_

_Emma shook her head. "No," she answered. "Not since breakfast. Is something wrong?"_

_Enoch shrugged. "I haven't seen her since breakfast either. She wasn't in her room, and I can't find her anywhere."_

_After breakfast, Celia had given Enoch a quick kiss before excusing herself. She had disappeared to bird knows where._

_"I can help you look." Emma offered, turning to head into the house._

_As soon as she reached the steps, a scream sounded from the backyard. Emma bolted for the yard and Enoch followed. In a semi-circle stood Hugh, Olive, Abraham, and Bronwyn. Emma brushed past them, wondering what was going on. She gasped at the sight before her, hands flying to her mouth—Celia lay motionless on the grass, eyes closed, one arm sprawled over her stomach and the other stretched out at an odd angle._

_"Hey, move! What's going on?" Enoch said, shoving Hugh and Bronwyn to the side. His jaw went slack as he looked at the motionless body of his lover._

_"She's dead," Horace murmured. Emma hadn't noticed him at first. He was sitting by her body with one of his hands over the one on her stomach, trying to keep the tears at bay. A choked sob left his lips and soon, tears were streaming down his face like a river._

_"What's all the com—oh my goodness!" Miss Peregrine gasped when she saw Celia's body. "W- wh- what happened?"_

_Olive looked up at Miss Peregrine, with tears in her eyes and soft cries emitting from her lips._

_Claire stepped up to the Bird, crying also. "We were playing tag, and she just fell down. We tried to wake her up, but she wouldn't open her eyes."_

_"There was no_ pulse. _" Millard added softly. "S- she's dead, Miss Peregrine."_

_Emma went to wrap her arms around Enoch, but he shoved her off of him. Abraham stepped forward, ready to tell Enoch off, but Emma stopped him. "It's okay."_

_Enoch ran into the house and Emma chased after him, calling his name, pleading for him to talk to her. She followed him down to the basement, already in tears. He was looking through all of the preserved hearts he kept up on the shelves._

_"Enoch,_ stop. _" Emma begged when she realized what he was wanting to do. He shook his head, filing through the jars. "You say people don't generally_ liked _to be brought back. What makes you think Celia would? Plus, you can't do it permanently, can you?"_

_"No!" Enoch snapped. "But I need her. I need her, and I'll take what I can get."_

_Emma's heart dropped. She could only fathom how Enoch felt right now—she couldn't imagine a life without Abe._

_"Enoch," Emma wiped at her eyes. He grabbed a jar and chucked it at the wall; Emma jumped at the sound of the glass shattering and formaldehyde splashing on the floor. She went to hug him and even though he squirmed, she wouldn't let go. "I'm so sorry."_

_"Let go of me," Enoch grumbled. She wouldn't. "Please, Em, let go of me."_

_He bolted up the stairs, running into Celia's room. He slammed the door and jumped face-down on the bed, inhaling her scent. He screamed into the pillows—he screamed and screamed until his throat_ hurt, _until he felt like he'd lost his voice, then he resorted to silent sobs until he fell asleep._

_. . ._

_Enoch was walking past Miss Peregrine's room when he heard Horace and Millard talking. About Celia._

_Curious, he stopped and pressed his ear against the door._

_"She killed herself," Millard said._

_"It's true," Horace seconded. "I had a dream. She was going to kill herself, but she was supposed to do it at nighttime, and she'd go in her sleep. I stayed with her to keep her from doing anything rash, and Enoch is always there when she wakes up, so I presumed she'd be okay. I invited her to play with us, so she wouldn't be left alone."_

_"But she must have done something after breakfast," Millard continued. "Before we went outside to play."_

_. . ._

_Three days._

_Three days since Celia died._

_Why did it feel like so much more time had passed than just three days?_

_It was dinnertime, and Miss Peregrine was looking around for Horace. He wasn't in his room, and there was nothing to do outside with all the kids inside. Enoch was bumping his food with his silverware._

_Finally, she gave up and took her seat at the head of the table._

_Just as they were about to dig in, Horace burst into the dining room._

_"Celia's gone!" Horace exclaimed. Furrowed brows all around. "I was going to drop off a tulip for_ her, _because I realized I hadn't done that today, and when I went to do so, her body wasn't there anymore. She's gone!"_

Enoch stiffened whilst everyone else suffered a case of slack jaw.

The next day, the kids would be introduced to someone completely different, completely contradictory to the dead-riser they'd come to know and love and care for.

—•—

—•—

Now Jacob understood. The Enoch he knew wasn't the real Enoch. Emotionally, at least. He had dealt with life and death on a daily basis, and had become so intimately acquainted with it. And when he had lost the one person he truly loved and he couldn't do anything to bring her back, he'd buried himself under a second self.

"We all lost a friend that day," Emma stood up and Jacob followed suit. "But Enoch lost someone he loved very deeply. He blamed himself the first days for not noticing that she wasn't okay, then when all of a sudden, she . . ."

"Is that why he pushed Lisa away when she first started pursuing him?" Jacob asked.

Emma didn't answer. Instead she said, "Sometimes I blame myself."

"Why?"

"I'm the one who told Enoch not to bring her back. He knew she wouldn't like it; they'd come to enjoy it on the other side because no one, according to Enoch, likes to be brought back for a chit-chat. But maybe if I had let him, just once, he'd . . . be a little more stable?"

Jacob nodded, embracing Emma in a tight hug. She couldn't get the correct words out, but he knew. He felt that way when his grandfather died. Maybe if he had just told him where the key was, then he'd still be alive. He placed a kiss on the crown of her head.

Emma gasped as Jacob pulled away.

"What?" he inquired.

"Nothing," Emma said. "I just thought . . ." She trailed off as her eyes followed something Jacob couldn't see. He turned around and noticed a figure standing a couple hundred feet away from them. It looked like a girl. She seemed to be gaping at Emma. "I—"

Without another word, Emma bolted across the field, after the stranger.

**a/n: A couple of things before the next chapter.**

**1\. Van de Coup. The "Coup" is pronounced without the "up". Van de Co.**

**2\. I don't live in Florida, and I've never visited. I'm getting my information** from **online. But I'm 99% sure tulip fields don't exist in Florida. It's here for the sake of the story, but 99% probably incorrect.**


End file.
